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> Guilty until proven innocent

This is a description of your stance on Alex Pretti.

You're looking for https://theyrule.net/

Ngl, this sounds like addiction. You don't have to use the site, man.

> Gatestone Institute is an American far-right think tank known for publishing anti-Muslim articles.

> The organization has attracted attention for publishing false or inaccurate articles, some of which were shared widely.

> The Gatestone Institute has been frequently described as anti-Muslim, regularly publishes false reports to stoke anti-Muslim fears, and has published false stories pertaining to Muslims and Islam.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatestone_Institute

The US and Israel have repeatedly claimed that schools and hospitals are legitimate military targets with no evidence. A highly partisan think tank which is known for putting out misinformation is not a valid source.

If you're going to destroy hospitals and target civilian infrastructure and kill children, you should be accountable on a world stage and provide evidence. Unless you would you accept Iran bombing elementary schools in the US because they claim to have intel that there are terrorists hiding under them?

That PR article doesn't answer the questions, and raises more:

- Why didn't SPD commission an independent study?

- What kinds of crimes were studied? Is this catching jaywalkers or homicides?

- Only mentions arrests. What about convictions? How are victims receiving justice?

- Where's the data and the reproducible methodology?

- How many people were tracked who didn't commit any crime at all?

There's so much wrong with that article that it's hard to come to any verifiable conclusions about the efficacy of the program. And again, doesn't answer any of the original questions.

Doubt that anyone is concerned with a random person catching a portion of your face while they're taking a picture in public. Instead, it's opposition to being tracked over time by a centralized entity like a private company or government agencies.

Such great questions. Maybe we should answer them before building a massive, privately-owned, nationwide surveillance apparatus with taxpayer money.

So you're saying that a technology:

- is trivially defeated by teenagers

- is used by police departments as evidence to legally justify violent raids for property damage

- whose data is mishandled by law enforcement agencies who don't do due diligence

... should have more widespread adoption and support?

The general sentiment in the thread is that this is too powerful a technology in the hands of unqualified law enforcement. In the same way that I don't trust federal law enforcement in the post-Snowden era, I don't trust local law enforcement with mass surveillance tools.

Biased policing means these systems are used to target minorities, activists, and people with "controversial" beliefs: https://www.aclu.org/issues/national-security/discriminatory...

EXACTLY, thank you! I run an international human trafficking and drug smuggling operation. I know that what I'm doing is good for society:

- It makes me and my partners extremely rich

- It creates jobs for at-risk youth

- It provides products and services that people want

It benefits society! I am a benefit to society! Why can't anyone see this?

I don't, unless you mean people who try to convince me that someone else is my enemy.

I don't have enemies.

Maybe we should leverage all of this supposedly world-changing AI to move on from primitive wars instead of using it to build more weapons. At a certain point, our species will be faced with a choice between maintaining the status quo (climate destruction, mass casualties through violent conflicts, food/water shortages, extinction-level events, etc) or working together to forge a sustainable path forward for the benefit of the species. An argument that this current world order is just how things are and there's nothing to be done but escalate is just a vote for the former.

Palantir's founders and executives are aware of what their tools are designed for and what they enable, and they're proud of their role.

Salesforce, Microsoft, and PostgresSQL contributors aren't bragging about how their products enable lethal military operations.

"We" as a species with common interests like "not eradicating ourselves through violence."

That's a false choice. By investing in weapons instead of diplomacy, we've created this world of tit-for-tat violence. We can dismantle it too, it's not necessary to continue escalating until we exterminate our species.

Many people (myself included) have a lot to say about those companies as well. But their existence doesn't excuse Palantir, the company at the focus of the article that we're discussing in this thread. We're on a tech-focused forum which is probably why you hear more about tech-first companies here like Palantir and Anduril than "legacy" weapons manufacturers.

Palantir's products are not Excel. Palantir's founders and executives are well aware of what their tools are designed for and what they enable, and they're proud of their role.

As far as I know, Microsoft executives don't brag about Excel being used to create a unified "kill chain" [1], nor do they market software intended for targeting for weapons of mass destruction [2], nor do they claim that their products are designed for use in lethal military operations [3].

As much as you'd like to hand-waive away their role, a war profiteer is a war profiteer. IBM also used to just make computers to manage supply chains in WW2; who they sold it to, the purposes it was used for, and why they sold it is still important. Based on interviews, Thiel and Karp are gleeful about their role in the military-industrial complex and embrace it [4], so likening their products to Excel is disingenuous at best.

[1] https://www.palantir.com/platforms/gotham/

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2026/mar/26/ai-got-the-blam...

[3] https://www.heise.de/en/news/Palantir-defends-its-role-in-th...

[4] https://futurism.com/future-society/palantir-ceo-war-crimes

The concern is more with the tools that Palantir creates around the domains they service. They analyze, predict, and shape decisions using unproven technology. Palantir controls insights, models, and outcomes, and given the anti-democratic and frankly unhinged extremist worldviews of the founders, it's highly concerning to allow them to create tools for sensitive and nuanced data that have life or death consequences.

Nobody ever accused these companies of being competent at suppressing the research (which includes third parties btw, not just internal).

Companies do this research for all sorts of reasons (including legal compliance, demonstrating due diligence to regulators, to understand users and improve products, etc etc etc). For example, it's not like Zuck commissioned an internal study to show how they're harming children, more like some internal team was seeking to understand why kids love a certain feature which led them to conclusions that make the company look bad.

To your third point, that research is usually leaked by whistleblowers or conducted by third parties, not because of the altruism of these companies.

Finally, the platforms aren't doing enough and with this court case, it seems like they've persisted in finding ways to hook children because of financial incentives.

The sources cited in this article are a good primer for understanding what these companies are doing: https://www.transparencycoalition.ai/news/meta-suppressed-re...

> Christianity is supported because it has shown itself to be the only culture capable to produce working institutions and a rule of law.

I'm really sick of these christian nationalists deciding that their chosen religion is the best thing for humanity and forcing it onto the rest of the world. "Working institutions" and "rule of law" for whom?

> Look at he middle east for understanding.

How comically reductive. Would you care to delve into the history of the middle east and of christian/western intervention?

> He is someone who plugged his fingers into the power outlett

Children harm themselves by plugging their fingers into power outlets. That's why we teach them not to.

No, it was to show how unreliable those criteria are as OP pulled the conversation into racial/cultural determinism.

Feel free to tackle the substance of any of my points.

As a case study, the Trump admin has done all those things (except the littering I guess) so I would say less likely since none of them have gone to prison.

The poor and marginalized tend to be incarcerated at much higher rates for lesser crimes than the richer and/or powerful whose crimes are much broader and more impactful on society.

The system in question in Essex is broken because it penalizes one race at higher rates than another race which commits the same crimes.

My point isn't whether or not it's acceptable. It's that this particular source (and the fact that it was posted on HN) is an attempt to astroturf support for war for the HN audience. This is meant to manufacture legitimacy for the US and Israel's illegal war.

As I said above: "This is not original, nor is it news, nor does it provide us with any developments." I am again asking you to think critically: how does posting this add to the conversation? Why would someone who only posts pro-Israel and anti-Iranian content submit this to HN?

Pointing out that this is propaganda shouldn't make you mad.

I'm asking for critical thinking skills. This two-sentence "article" is literally just a screenshot of a chart on NetBlocks (which does its own reports, FYI, of which this is not one). Iran International is a Saudi-funded mouthpiece which astroturfs opposition to its enemies. The user who submitted it is not on HN for curious discussion and is solely focused on a pro-Israel, anti-Iran submissions.

HN should not be used as a platform to manufacture consent for war. This is not original, nor is it news, nor does it provide us with any developments. It is a transparent attempt to chip away the credibility of an enemy of Saudi Arabia.

You yourself have questioned sources before [1]. So what's your issue here? Why is it only acceptable for you to point out potential bias?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46849715#46850128

> Curious who funds mintpressnews.com

> It’s a blatant translation of Islamic Regime propaganda websites.

> see KhabarOnline, IRIB, etc.

No, I'm pointing out that Google is a for-profit company that collaborates with governments. In the age of mass surveillance, we should dispense with idealistic notions of these companies somehow being forces for good and instead understand their motivations and modes of operation.

Everything else is your words, not mine.

Flagged. Can we please not boost obvious astroturfing campaigns? [1]

"According to The Wall Street Journal, "[some] journalists at Iran International have complained that management is pushing a pro-Saudi, anti-Islamic Republic line". WSJ quoted a former correspondent at the TV station commenting that "a systematic and very persistent push" was made during her time there. Azadeh Moaveni of New York University has charged the channel is an arm of Saudi Arabia: "I would not describe Iran International as pro-reform, or organically Iranian in any manner". Historian Lior Sternfeld [he] stated, "Just as Al-Jazeera promotes Qatari interests, so does this channel promote Saudi interests regarding Iran", while noting a softening in Mohammed bin Salman's attitude towards Iran from around 2021. By 2026, in the estimation of the international relations scholar Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi, Iran International was possibly being backed by Israel." [2]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=ukblewis

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_International#Editorial_i...

Can you tell us a bit more about the gag orders? I find it fascinating that all the discussion about climate change has largely disappeared after LLMs became mainstream, and the idea that state actors may be suppressing data is equally fascinating/terrifying.

> What I don't understand is why you blame Google for being forced

They weren't forced. I linked to sources showing they voluntarily handed over the information. There is no resistance.

> Have you ever seen the interface that the police forces of many countries demanded be delivered

No, but I'd imagine it looks a lot like the comprehensive information that Google provided without warrants in the first two links I provided.

> Are you aware all Telcos, from AT&T to BT do the same, except 1000x bigger scale?

Also terrible. Doesn't excuse Google.

> Are you aware that an EU country

> Are you aware that a US police officer

These are states and agents of the state, which Google is not. Google also doesn't execute people in public hangings, but that doesn't excuse their actions as a company.

Google unethically assists state actors. It's why they removed "Don't be evil" as their motto. They are not a force for good in the world, they are a company that exists to maximize shareholder value. The benevolent ideals you ascribe to the company are not based on the reality of their actions.